Pride

Album: Fallen (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • Pride is not only considered to be one of Christianity's seven deadly sins, but is also said to be the original and most serious of them, as it was the cause of Lucifer's fall from heaven. This song finds Michael Sweet warning the listener about the consequences of an excessive sense of one's self.

    "Sometimes, pride gets in the way of what we want to accomplish or what we want to do," said Sweet with a sigh. "Everybody goes through that. It's my reminder saying, 'Let's not allow pride to tear us apart.' Nine times out of ten, that is what separates us. Beat our pride down, and we will survive."
  • Sweet told Billboard magazine the song incorporates the dual aspects of Stryper's musical personality. "It's a perfect merger of the melodic side with the heavy side," he explained. "If you were to combine 'To Hell with the Devil' and 'Calling On You'...In the old days we always had the heavy songs and then poppier songs. This is a merge of the two. It's got it all."
  • The old-school video was made on a shoestring compared to the group's big-spending heydays in the 1980s. "It's hard when you make videos for a band like Stryper these days, 'cause a lot of times you don't have the budget," Sweet said. "Back in the days when we made 'Calling On You,' those big videos in the '80s, you were talking $100,000, $200,000 budgets. Right now you're very fortunate if you have a $5,000 budget to make a video, so you've got to be more creative. Sometimes they're not what you expect them to be or aren't comparable to what you did before, but I think 'Pride' is an exception. We're very pleased with it."

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